Universities must help build a stronger national innovation system, says DSTI Director-General

The Director-General of the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI), Dr Mlungisi Cele, has commended the University of Zululand (UNIZULU) for its growing contribution to South Africa's science, technology and innovation (ST&I) landscape, saying the Department was keen to deepen its support and collaboration with the institution.

Speaking during a visit to the university on Monday, Dr Cele highlighted several areas of excellence at the institution, including its research and innovation capabilities.

He noted, for example, that the University's South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Nanotechnology had built significant expertise in nanomaterials synthesis over the past two decades and was ranked among the top-performing SARChI Chairs nationally in a review conducted by the National Research Foundation.

"The Department does not take such achievements for granted, and views them as important contributions to South Africa's science and innovation landscape," said Dr Cele.

He explained that the country needed to reposition the national system of innovation (NSI) so that it responded to societal needs while remaining globally competitive. "We cannot continue to work in silos. The challenges facing South Africa are too great and the resources available to us are too limited. We need institutions of higher learning to recognise their respective strengths and work together to build a stronger, more coherent and more impactful innovation system," he said.

A key objective of the engagement was to explore how the university could contribute to national policy development and implementation. While government is responsible for formulating policy, Dr Cele noted that the country had limited capacity in ST&I policy research and analysis.

He proposed closer collaboration between universities and the Department to strengthen policy research, monitoring and evaluation, and to help create a more effective learning and developmental state.

He also highlighted transformation as a critical priority, noting that, while progress had been made in increasing the participation of women in research, senior academic positions remained largely dominated by white men. He called for greater efforts to expand opportunities for women, particularly black women, to advance into professorial and research leadership positions.

At the same time, he warned that the country's research system faced a significant renewal challenge. Many senior academics are approaching retirement, while institutions struggle to attract and retain younger researchers and academics.

According to Dr Cele, addressing this challenge would require stronger cooperation between universities, government and the Department of Higher Education and Training to ensure the long-term sustainability of the country's academic and research workforce.

He further called for increased participation by historically disadvantaged institutions in the country's major research, development and innovation infrastructure programmes. He said that government was keen to engage universities to find practical ways of ensuring that national investments in research infrastructure and digital capabilities were more broadly shared.

Reflecting on the global environment, Dr Cele said geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainty, climate change and rapid technological disruption were affecting the NSI, pointing to reductions in international research funding and the growing tendency among countries to view ST&I through the lens of national security.

These developments, he said, have highlighted the importance of building scientific and technological sovereignty, citing the risks of excessive dependence on external technologies and capabilities that the Covid-19 pandemic had demonstrated.

"When the world needed vaccines, countries prioritised their own citizens first. That experience reminded us that nations without strong scientific and technological capabilities are vulnerable when global crises arise," he said.

For this reason, government is increasingly focused on diversifying international research partnerships, strengthening domestic capabilities and promoting greater self-reliance in strategic areas of science and technology. Excessive dependence on donor funding can limit the continent's ability to define and pursue its own research priorities.

Dr Cele said that Africa needed to invest more heavily in its own research and innovation systems, establishing stronger African research funding mechanisms and undertaking collaborative projects like the African Genome Project, which seeks to generate genomic data that is representative of African populations and can support more effective healthcare interventions.

The Director-General also highlighted the opportunities presented by emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, while cautioning that innovation should be guided by ethics, inclusion and sustainability.

He encouraged universities to develop locally relevant technological solutions and to help ensure that South Africa was not merely a consumer of imported technologies but also a creator of new knowledge and innovations. He stressed the need to strike a better balance between basic research, applied research, and mission-oriented research aimed at addressing pressing social and economic challenges.

"Science must remain excellent, but it must become more responsive to society's needs. We need innovation that creates jobs, improves lives and contributes to inclusive development," he said.

Another major challenge facing the country, noted Dr Cele, was the difficulty of moving innovations beyond pilot projects and demonstration phases into commercial markets and large-scale implementation.

He called on universities to help develop new approaches for scaling innovations that had the potential to deliver broad economic and social impact and urged them to strengthen partnerships with the private sector, saying that the country's investment in research and development remained below desired levels, and that greater collaboration between universities, industry and government was essential if the country was to increase innovation-led growth.

Concluding his address, Dr Cele said universities had a responsibility not only to produce graduates and research outputs, but also to contribute actively to nation-building and development.

Prof. Nokuthula Kunene, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of UNIZULU, welcomed the Director-General's visit, stating that it provided a significant opportunity to enhance collaboration between the university and the DSTI.

"As a university, we are committed to advancing knowledge that responds to the pressing challenges facing the country, our society and the African continent. Through our teaching, research and community engagement activities, we seek to position UNIZULU as a leading centre of African scholarship, innovation and development that contributes meaningfully to national priorities," she said.

Prof. Kunene expressed gratitude for the support that the DSTI and its entities, including the Technology Innovation Agency, continued to provide to the university. She said that the funding received was helping to nurture a new generation of innovators, entrepreneurs and problem-solvers, who would contribute to South Africa's future economy.

"The enthusiasm, creativity and determination demonstrated by our students are proof that innovation is not confined to laboratories or lecture halls. Innovation flourishes when young minds are empowered, supported and given opportunities to transform ideas into practical solutions that can improve lives", she added.

UNIZULU's Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Prof. Byron Brown, highlighted strategic projects in key focus areas aligned with the DSTI's ST&I Decadal Plan (2022-2032), including water security and sustainable water resource management, and nutrition security, with an emphasis on indigenous foods and agroprocessing.

Prof. Brown noted that the university needed to make targeted investments to support future research and innovation growth. He pointed out that the northern KwaZulu-Natal region had received lower levels of investment in innovation support than other parts of the province.

He also spoke about UNIZULU's partnerships with regional stakeholders, including Richards Bay Minerals, the Richards Bay Industrial Development Zone, South32, the Zululand Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs. Areas of engagement included research and development, entrepreneurship, enterprise development, testing services, innovation commercialisation, and strengthening the regional innovation ecosystem through collaboration and partnership-building.

"These are strategic projects that require significant infrastructure investment and sustained funding support over a 10-year period if we are to unlock their full potential for research, innovation and regional development," said Prof Brown.

The visit to the University of Zululand was part of Dr Cele's ongoing engagement with universities to strengthen South Africa's NSI and to ensure that ST&I respond more directly to the country's developmental challenges while supporting inclusive economic growth.